A Christmas Remembered
by Nagaku Tsuzuku Yami
Summary: Victor remembers his most cherished memory when it comes to Christmas.


**A Christmas Remembered**

Close to twenty years past since the Alkali incident.

Twenty years since his little brother's skeleton was coated over with adamantium.

Twenty-six years since his brother left him in Lagos.

Twenty-six years later, Victor despite all his cruelties felt somewhat nostalgic and dare he say wishful and regretful. If anyone asks him, he would deny it of course. So, twenty-six years later he found himself sitting in a tree downwind from the mansion he knew his brother was living now. A cold beer dangled loosely in his clawed grip as he watched as his brother sat on a bench looking in a direction that was far from his location. He would have moved if his brother looked towards him. He was aware that his brother didn't have his memories, and was aware of the lose the X-Men suffered beginning with the lose of the headmaster, Charles Xavier who was by all counts the founder of both the school and the X-Men.

Victor knew this for one reason, to keep track of what's going on in his brother's life. He even knew how much money his brother would earn in a year of cage fighting. No, he wasn't stalking him or anything. He was just keeping an eye out for his little brother. After all, that's what brothers do.

A low growl rumbled from his chest at that fact. He was the only one keeping to that fact! He was the only one who remembered! Victor felt lucky that his growl could easily pass off as a stray animal he was glad it wasn't enough to catch his brother's attention. He couldn't slip up like that again!

Victor could remember the last time he celebrated Christmas with his brother. Their father was still alive, and his brother was under the false implications that the Master of the place was his father. Almost smiling at the memory Victor leaned back in the tree comfortably. Relying on the wind to not give away his position.

~_Christmas 1841~_

_Young Victor was stuck cleaning out the stall's the horses stay in. This was his job, outside the young son of the Howlett's played with his father. Dressed warmly, that boy always got sick. Scoffing lightly at the fact that he heard the young boy spew out a list of things he wanted. Rolling his eyes he continued his job, he wished he had something like that. But didn't bother dwelling on that fact. It didn't matter right now, the more work he got done the less chance for a lashing later. He hated his father, but couldn't bring himself to kill the man no matter how many times he tried after his father passed out from too much to drink. _

_Sighing lightly he watched as his breath clearly showed in the air for a moment. He ignored the horses even as they cowered away from him. They new a predator when the saw one no matter how young he is. Not that he could do much to them, he finished de-clawing himself this morning and tonight he would probably have to do it again. _

_Outside the stable he could hear young James beg to play outside a little longer, he promised to stay warm and with that he was allowed. The boy always got what he wanted it seemed like. And later, he would most likely get a fever again. Stupid kid. _

_A ball that James was playing with in the snow rolled into the stable. James got that for Christmas this morning; Victor felt a pang of jealousy at not being able to know what that was like. But shoved it back with a scowl as he watched James run into the stable after it stopping short at seeing him. It made Victor scowl even more; he rarely spoke to James and never saw much of a reason to speak to him. Though he always found the boy's scent weird. It smelt something like his mothers but not his fathers, and yet there was something familiar in that scent. Victor couldn't understand why. _

"_Hi." James greeted, a wide grin that faltered when he didn't get a return greeting. Victor honestly didn't expect to be greeted by the younger boy; James never really put an effort into speaking with him before. Too busy being sick or studying. _

"_Did you get anything for Christmas? I did, it's the ball I'm playing with." James tried again. Victor was faintly amused at how hard James was trying. But of course, Victor being Victor decided not to go along with the boy and give him a reward for his efforts. _

"_Why would I get anything for Christmas. And who cares about your stupid ball anyways." Victor spat, more harshly then he intended. He won't apologize though, why should he. It's not like they are anything to each other. The boy's half smile disappeared, good, maybe he would just leave now. Victor had a job to do. What he was surprised by though was the question James asked next. _

"_You didn't get anything?" James asked, honestly shocked and in his young age hurt by that fact. Victor scowled, hiding the surprise at both question and the genuine concern he could have sworn that he heard coming from the younger boy. He could have heard wrong though. That's been known to happen a lot. Especially when it comes to wishful thinking about his father. He learnt from that though. _

"_No…" Victor answered, not sure why he answered. But he did and now the boy was obviously concentrating on something. It was funny to watch and Victor couldn't help but quietly scoff in amusement to himself. The boy's whole face seemed to light up with an unheard idea. _

"_Wait here. I'll be right back." James said enthusiastically. Victor wanted to retort 'where else would I go' but James was already gone. He didn't know a small boy like that could move through the snow like that so quickly. Victor found himself actually waiting where he stood. Compelled for some reason he couldn't understand. _

_It wasn't long until he saw James return with a cup, he could see the steam rising up steadily. James was obviously hurrying in order to get to the stable before whatever it was got cold. Once he got there he sheepishly said,  
_"_I looked around for something… But I couldn't find anything that you might like… So I brought you some hot tea. And chocolate, it's rare that we get chocolate. Didn't have much so you can have mine." _

_To say Victor was shocked was an understatement; no one ever really gave him something out of kindness before. Not truly anyway. Victor reluctantly leant the rake against a wall of the stable and gingerly took the cup; he took one sip and decided he didn't like tea at all. But found himself drinking it simply because of how warm it was. It obviously made James very happy, the boy seemed to light up even more then he did before. _

_Once finished he attempted to give the cup back but James told him to keep it. Victor would have loved to keep it, but he knew his father wouldn't react all that well to the gift he was given by the son of the Master, Victor said,  
_"_You keep it for me… It'll be safer with you being that I'm a worker and a tad bit of a ruffian." _

"_You sure…" James asked uncertain of the aspect of keeping a part of Victor's gift._

"_Ya." Victor muttered calmly while watching James started to rummage through his pocket pulling out a small package while saying,_

"_O-Okay. Here, here's the chocolate." Holding it out to Victor. Victor took the chocolate and watched as James watched him expectantly. Did he expect him to eat the chocolate here!? Obviously, so grudgingly Victor plopped the thing in his mouth and felt it start to melt. It was the expensive chocolate. He found that he actually liked the chocolate and told James so. Victor couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow at the smile he got for admitting that he liked chocolate. _

"_James! Come in from the cold." Victor heard a woman call, the mother. James looked in that direction before looking back at Victor before grabbing his ball. _

"_Merry Christmas Victor." James happily said before he took off towards the house. Victor shook his head and allowed himself a rare smile to grace his face. He didn't say it back, the words just didn't come and James wasn't in the stables anymore. _

_That night he got a pretty bad lashing for not getting the stable done. But that didn't faze Victor any, not today anyway. Not with the warmth he felt at the small kind gesture an innocent and naïve boy did for him. _

_~End Christmas 1841~_

Victor didn't remember looking down, but when he looked back up his brother was gone. Looking around frantically, making sure there was no sneak attacks of any sort coming at him. After all, he was Sabretooth. The bad guy in the X-Men's book. And his brother, unfortunately, was an X-Man. Spotting him walking by a window inside the halls with a girl, he remembered her faintly as the girl he was stuck strapping to the machine to turn humans into mutants.

Magneto's failure of a plan.

Victor scoffed slightly; his brother was so tamed now. Stupid brother. Stupid X-Men.

Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a small chocolate bar. They didn't make them like they used to, but without his brother's knowledge it became a tradition for Victor. Something else he'll deny if anyone asks. Hell, he's been known to choke down a cup of tea depending on how far back in the past he thought about. Eating it calmly he tossed the wrapper down to the ground, uncaring where it landed. Checking a watch he stole off someone he killed yesterday he noted the time to be close to 11 pm. His brother was somewhere else in the mansion; this would probably be the only time he'll get to sneak in. So, moving so that he was crouched on his heels he leaned back slightly in order to get extra momentum. Once satisfied, he leapt right onto the mansion's fence and quickly made his way across the lawn. Thankfully the security system isn't activated until 12 am.

Probably later tonight in order to get the pups to shut up about something called Santa Clause, Victor never paid attention to all the nonsense involved with this holiday so he really had no clue about much of it. Scaling the wall he quickly made his way into his brothers unoccupied room. He knew where it was, for the same reason he knew how much money his brother made a few years ago in cage fighting. Slipping in he sniffed and noted the scent of his brother was a few hours old. So he had time to get what he needed to do done and leave before his brother returns. Hopefully.

Looking around he noted that his brother wasn't the cleanest person around. The garbage was overfilled slightly nothing was falling over yet. And dirty cloths littered the ground in one corner. Smirking slyly he walked over to it and hooked a claws finger in one of the muscle shirts and sniffed it. Without hesitation he slipped it into his inner jacket pocket. Walking over to the unmade bed he sniffed lightly, old smells of sex but no foreign scent. Snickering at that he reached in his pocket and pulled out two things.

One thing was old dog tags from WW1, back then his brother still went by Howlett. So the name on the dog tag was none other then "James Howlett". He also left a chocolate bar on the pillow with the dog tags with a Christmas card explaining whom the dog tags belong to and nothing more. Victor will explain later about the chocolate bar. If there was ever a later. Frowning he shook his head lightly and jumped out the window with surprising agile for someone his size. He landed on the ground softer then most would expect.

And off he went into the darkness and into the tree he was in, just so he could see if his brother had arrived to find his gifts yet. Victor had a truck that he had parked near the tree he was sitting in. He noticed his brother just entered the room and was sniffing the air while holding the three things in his hands, more carefully then Victor expected him to. Hell, he expected them to be crushed, hence why he bought a cheap card rather then spend a lot of money on a colored piece of paper folded in half. But he found some satisfaction that they weren't discarded so quickly.

Chuckling to himself he jumped down beside his truck and climbed in. Right after he closed the truck door he simply said,  
"Merry Christmas Jimmy." Finally after over a hundred years he managed to force those words out. But only this once! This was the only time he planned on being nice to a mindless brother; he'll wait until the fool got his memories back. Until his brother got his memories back, Victor decided to keep up his tradition of dropping by on his birthday and beat the shit out of him.

* * *

**Authoress Note:** Heh, probably _way_ out of character (like it is in each and every one of my fanfics) but that's fine. It's a Christmas special. My first at an attempt on writing a Christmas Special since I've signed up to XD

So hopefully you enjoyed it enough to keep reading right to the end and to this rather short authoress note.

And above all, have a very Merry Christmas!

R&R


End file.
